The Book of the Lion

by Elizabeth Daly

  “Bradlock? He won’t handle it, won’t even listen about it. Says it’s no business of his, belongs to her heirs. Old Lady Longridge pipes up that it probably goes to this little cousin, Miss Orme.”

  Gamadge suddenly grinned. “I bet it is Sally’s!”

  “Bradlock wasn’t interested in how she got it or where it came from or whether Iverson killed her for it. I guess he’d be only too glad to let sleeping dogs lie. And we didn’t find any evidence about it in the studio, or in Iverson’s place either—not even a burned paper.”

  Gamadge was recovering his spirits a little. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “I guess you were right about that, anyhow,” conceded Durfee. “They’d dug up something of value in Paul Bradlock’s papers. It was obvious that Avery Bradlock didn’t know a thing about any of it.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “Well.” Durfee rose. “As you say, they’re all dead—Paul Bradlock, Mrs. Paul, Mrs. Wakes and Iverson. Listen, Gamadge, do me one favour.”

  “Any number.”

  “Don’t get interested in my affairs. Three people dead in two days, two suicides and one probably murder. Keep away from me, will you? You’re poison.”

  “In homœopathic doses, perhaps…”

  “Not any way.”

  They laughed, shook hands, and went out into the hall. Gamadge let him go down in the elevator alone. As the front door closed behind him the telephone tinkled, and Gamadge snatched it up.

  “Mr. Gamadge?” Indus sounded subdued.

  “Indus, for heaven’s sake, I’d have burst into a thousand shreds if you hadn’t called.”

  “I couldn’t get away any sooner, not to make it safe.”

  “Thank goodness you didn’t call half a minute ago.”

  “I thought you might be tied up, too. I’m round the corner. Could I—”

  “I think it’s all right now. Be careful.”

  “You bet.”

  Gamadge was down at the front door when he came. He drew him into the hall, into the office, took his hat and coat away from him, and sat him in a chair. Indus, his hands on his knees, looked up with an odd expression on his squirrel face; half pride, half doubt. Gamadge sat down in front of him.

  “Indus, I don’t understand any of it. Why should you go after Iverson? Why should he shoot himself? What happened to your joints?”

  “I didn’t tell it just the way it happened, Mr. Gamadge. And the cops don’t know about my jernts.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “I couldn’t have caught up with the feller down there by the hospital wall, not if he’d pulled a gun and beat it away. I pulled my gun first.”

  Gamadge sat back. “Well, that’s explained. But—”

  “He’d seen me in the studio, before you got there. Must have come through that passage you told me about.”

  “He did.”

  “Anything said about his being at the Bradlocks’?”

  “Thank God no, the maid wasn’t around when Durfee called.”

  “Well, when we got down on that block I was across the street and behind him, and he turned and saw me. He could have got away easy, of course, so I had to pull my gun and tell him to stop. Then when I got up to him he pulled his, but I tackled him first and down he went.”

  “But—”

  “I told him I saw him do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Throw that case at that woman and knock her down the stairs.”

  “You—how could you see it?”

  “Well, after you left I thought I might as well be on hand, report proceedings if there were any. It just occurred to me that if I climbed along that railing that runs along the top of the wall, I could see in one of those side windows of the studio.”

  Gamadge said nothing.

  “I know I didn’t have orders,” said Indus mildly. “But I hadn’t thought of the window while you were there. I climbed along, and I saw her come out of the trap-door and stand up there with a case in her hand, yelling at him. I didn’t hear what she said. He was looking up at her, and if I’d been in her place I wouldn’t have taken the risk.”

  “I have an idea she was getting ready to throw him over. She hadn’t committed the murders.”

  “Anyway, she said too much. He just stooped down and picked up that little case and swung it. I couldn’t look.”

  Gamadge sat motionless.

  “Down she came, I took one peek at her, and I saw him go over and start hunting in the ruins. I beat it out of there and waited for him along the block. Was he fixing to lam out with the money? Or was he satisfied with the accident picture?”

  “I don’t know. The accident picture would give him a good start. I don’t think he’d stay around afterwards. No, you’re right, he was clearing out. He had the whole works—his and hers.”

  “I don’t know about that. All I know is, I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to tell it this way.”

  Gamadge rose. “Indus, if nobody saw you—”

  “I’ll bank on that.”

  Gamadge began feverishly to hunt in his desk, unlock a filing cabinet, gather up currency. “Here; here’s the bonus. Send me the bill.”

  “Mr. Gamadge.” Indus sat with his hands full of money, looking at it. “It ain’t worth this much.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “I wasn’t follering orders.”

  “Do you think I wouldn’t have given orders, if I’d imagined that you could get a look through that window? Indus, we’re not concealing anything useful—everybody knows it’s murder, and there’s nobody left alive to be prosecuted. If they really started asking me questions, one thing leads to another, and—Indus, Avery Bradlock doesn’t know anything about this business. I’m going to keep him from knowing, if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Indus thought it over for a minute, and then let it sink away and be lost in the depths of his discretion. He asked: “Who’s going to pay you back?”

  “Nobody. It’s worth the money.”

  Indus nodded, and got up. Gamadge saw him out, then he came back, woke Sun the chow, put his leash on, and walked him around the block. It was a clear, pleasant night, and the air was fresh and clean in Gamadge’s nostrils; Iverson was dead, Vera Bradlock was dead, and they hadn’t pulled the other house down with them to destruction—Mrs. Avery Bradlock, Avery Bradlock, or the mother-in-law who was so fond of him.

  When he came upstairs, Clara spoke from the dark: “Everything all right?”

  “I think so. I’m a little tired.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Autograph Letter Signed

  ON A MISTY OCTOBER evening, warm as summer, J. Hall came to dinner with the Gamadges. Afterwards, while they drank their coffee and Hall told Clara stories, Gamadge considered some of the matters that had been settled, or were in a fair way to being settled, since he had last seen his learned friend.

  The Bradlock studio was fast turning into a bijou residence. Windows had been punched into its north and south walls, the Bradlock house had been sealed off, and the connecting passage (also provided with windows) was now a kitchenette. The old kitchen was a bedroom. Decorators were doing the place up in brilliant colours, and prospective tenants were already outbidding one another in fierce rivalry for possession.

  Bradlock having stonily refused to do anything whatever about the securities found on Iverson’s body, his position being that if his sister-in-law had sold property of his brother’s it had been hers to sell and now belonged to her heirs, Welsh had appealed to Gamadge in Sally’s behalf. Gamadge had recommended a young lawyer. Since nobody else laid claim to the bonds, the young lawyer had finally argued them into a safety deposit box under the name of Sara Orme Welsh. Iverson’s share had not been found; he had probably converted it into cash, and banked it somewhere under another name; Gamadge could only hope that if it was found it would not add up to anything likely to attract the attention of Avery Bradlock. But would anything, even mathematics, persuade Avery Bra
dlock into suspicion of his wife? Gamadge thought not.

  The irony involved in this struggle to get the bonds out of the Bradlock family was known to only two persons, and neither of them was likely to comment on it to anybody else. Not even to each other. When the Gamadges did dine with the Bradlocks the conversation was general, and old Mrs. Longridge kept a firm hand on the helm. She was not likely to steer the talk into dark waters, and when she did refer to the studio it was remotely, as “our other house.” She rather sounded as if their other house might be very far off, as far as Longridge itself.

  Welsh spent his afternoons in the Gamadge laboratory, his mornings at other technical work. He had given up the hospital, and slept of nights. Sally typed in an office. When they left the Bronx, they had settled in the suburbs. Sally wished to spend her fortune on his education, but he thought not. He could soon enough pay for that himself.

  All in all, Gamadge thought, prospects were cheerful so far as he and his friends were personally concerned. Now J. Hall was speaking to him:

  “Gamadge, what about that investigation of yours—that Chaucer thing? Anything come of it?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “I wondered at the time—you mentioned Paul Bradlock. His wife was killed, not twenty-four hours after our talk.”

  “Oh, the interval was longer than that.”

  “I always meant to call you up about it, but I’m so busy. “

  “Don’t know a thing.”

  J. Hall laughed.

  “Tell you what, though.” Gamadge rose. “I have something to show you. An acquisition.” He opened the desk drawer and found an envelope among other papers. It was a plain white envelope, and it contained a dwarf-sized letter sheet covered with writing. An undistinguished hand—or perhaps the script of an invalid?

  J. Hall took it and looked at it. “Beautiful,” he said. “Beautiful specimen. His last lap, poor fellow. Which is it?” He studied it, and looked up. “Do you know, Gamadge, I can’t recall ever having seen this one, original or facsimile. Good heavens, is it a new find? Where did you—do you want me to sell it for you?”

  “Well, no.” Gamadge held out his hand for it. “There was a letter with it, but that’s lost. I never read it.”

  “But this doesn’t need any statement of provenance.” Hall reluctantly handed it back.

  “I thought you’d say it didn’t.”

  Gamadge opened the letter, held it by a corner, and clicked his cigarette lighter. Hall started forward in his chair; his arm shot out convulsively.

  “Good heavens, Gamadge, what are you doing?”

  The flame lighted salutation and signature: My dearest Fanny, and at the end, John Keats.

  “Burning it up,” said Gamadge. “It’s a forgery.”

  WANT MORE HENRY GAMADGE?

  Read the first two chapters of the next book in the series, And Dangerous to Know

  CHAPTER ONE

  Interior

  THERE ARE STILL a few such rows of old brownstone houses on the upper East Side in New York, and among the bright remodelled dwellings and the glossy apartments that hem them in, they look rather grim. Some of their high stoops and deep areas are in bad repair or not cared for at all, since these belong to rooming-houses or to property that is boarded-up, for rent or for sale, waiting for an estate to be settled or an absentee landlord to die.

  But among these relics there are still living fossils, private residences with well-swept doorways, where window boxes bloom all spring and summer; people like the Dunbars live in them, people who have plenty of money but are careful about spending it, who have a strong attachment to the past and dislike change and novelty. They bring their plumbing and their kitchens up to date, and go comfortably on where their grandparents were comfortable three-quarters of a century ago.

  The Dunbar house was pleasantly situated on the south side of the block and just off the park, and in summer it had dark blue Holland shades in the windows, and a caretaker to water the geraniums in the window boxes while the family was away. But on this twenty-second of July the shades were up and the storm doors open. The family was at home.

  At about one o’clock Miss Alice Dunbar climbed the front stoop and rang the bell. She was in her early thirties, of medium height, and thin. Her complexion was sallow, her hair and eyes dark, her face quite without expression. She was wearing conservative and expensive clothing: a dark blue voile dress, a small dark blue hat, fawn kid gloves, black shoes.

  Her blank look was not a look of indifference; there was nothing calm about it. It might have meant a deliberate withdrawal into herself, the tension of long years of defence. It did not express passivity. Waiting for the door to open, she glanced to the right towards the dusty trees of the park, to the left, past a vacant lot, towards Madison Avenue; but her dark eyes saw nothing. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts.

  A maid opened the door. Miss Dunbar asked: “Am I late, Eileen?”

  “Just on time, Miss.”

  “I hope there’s iced tea.”

  “Iced coffee, Miss.”

  “Oh. Good,” said Miss Dunbar vaguely. She climbed the two flights of stairs to her bedroom.

  When she came back, without her gloves and hat, her family were at table in the dining-room: Mr. Dunbar, Mrs. Dunbar, and their widowed younger daughter, Mrs. Richfield Tanner. Mr. Angus Dunbar was a man of sixty-five, thin everywhere—a narrow head, a thin long nose, a thin mouth. He had a certain amount of dry humour, which Mrs. Dunbar appreciated, but it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that she never laughed. When amused, she smiled. She was pink-faced and blond, a little plump, and she sat up straight in her chair.

  Abigail Tanner had lost her husband, a flying man, in the war. Blond like her mother, she had been a very pretty girl; now she had lost her fresh colouring, and looked a little dissipated. Her father and mother did not see the change like that; they said she had been through so much it had aged her. She had her husband’s money, and in winter-time she lived alone in a hotel. This summer she had been with her family in their cottage on Cape Cod, and had come to the city with them for a funeral. The funeral, that of an aged relative, had taken place the week before, but Mr. Dunbar was staying on as executor of the estate.

  Alice came in and sat down opposite her sister. Her brown hair was in a low pompadour, and wisps escaped from it. She looked very tired.

  Her mother said: “Why is it, I wonder, that the rest of us can always be in time for meals.”

  Alice said nothing; she began on the jellied bouillon the maid put before her. After a pause her father observed: “I think your mother spoke to you, Alice.”

  “Yes, Father; did she? I’m sorry if I was ten seconds late.”

  “Well, really,” said Mrs. Dunbar in her rather high voice.

  “I suddenly remembered another errand. Stockings for the shore.”

  “Where?” asked Mrs. Dunbar, always interested in shopping.

  “Just a little place.”

  “It’s a waste of money to go to those shops.”

  Abigail, her elbows on the table, languidly eating celery, said that she’d go without stockings at the shore and in town too, if she had to go errands in this heat.

  “Alice was getting things for me this morning,” replied Mrs. Dunbar.

  “I still think we might have given the funeral a miss,” said Abigail. “In the circumstances, I mean.” She smiled. “Don’t you, Father? Why should we bother?”

  Mr. Dunbar answered indulgently: “Wouldn’t have done. Your great-aunt! No other family to go.”

  “But my goodness, to open the house!”

  “Your father will be here for a good while,” said Mrs. Dunbar, “with all the estate business to settle. His comfort comes first. Do you think I should allow him to be all by himself at the club?”

  “Your poor children could have stayed at the Cape,” said Mrs. Tanner; smiling at her mother.

  “And keep two establishments going? Besides, it looked very much bette
r for us to be here.”

  “Don’t we get anything out of it, Father?”

  “My executor’s commission,” replied Mr. Dunbar drily.

  “We always expected Aunt Woodworth to leave a great deal to her charities,” said Mrs. Dunbar.

  “And we don’t need the money. Quite right to leave it as she wished,” said Mr. Dunbar.

  “I know, but—” Mrs. Tanner looked across the table at her sister, who had seemed oblivious of the conversation. She asked: “You had plenty of time; why on earth didn’t you go up there now and then?”

  Alice replied: “I try not to go where I bore people. And I wasn’t brought up to truckle for money; or was I?”

  Mrs. Dunbar said: “Hush,” as the maid came in, removed cups and brought salad. When they were alone again, she went on: “Decent attention is not truckling.”

  “Well, anyway,” said Mrs. Tanner, “there weren’t any legacies except for the servants; I was afraid she’d put in a codicil in favour of the protégés.”

  Mr. Dunbar laughed. “No, thank Heaven, nothing like that! Your great-aunt wasn’t doddering.”

  “I had an idea she was,” said Mrs. Tanner, laughing. “The way she went on about that convalescent ex-marine of hers, what was his name? Dobbs. And the others before. She talked about nothing else when we were there at Christmas.”

  “Cases from the hospital,” said Mrs. Dunbar quickly. “Of course she would be interested. She lived for that hospital.”

  “Oh well, I suppose they got cash presents,” said Mrs. Tanner.

  “Nothing considerable,” said her father. “Her accounts were very well kept. Mrs. Baynes attended to them for her.”

  “Well then,” said Mrs. Tanner idly, “I suppose none of the protégés pushed her downstairs. That’s something.”

  “What on earth!” Mr. Dunbar, gazing at his daughter sternly, spoke in a tone of strong disapprobation.

  “Just joking, Father.”